CIA projects grim future for Pakistan

From StrategyPage

February 14, 2005: A new CIA report predicts that Pakistan may well come apart in the next decade. Corruption and poor government are making Islamic radicalism more popular, especially in the Pushtun (northwest) and Baluchi (southwest) tribal areas. Most of the population is not tribal. In fact, about have the population is in one province, Punjab. When India and Pakistan were formed in 1947, Punjab was split, with about 70 percent of it going to Pakistan. The Indian portion, with better government and less corruption, has done more than twice as well as the Pakistani part (on a per-capita basis). India also has problems with tribal separatists (in the northeast), but in Pakistan the tribes comprise a larger portion of the population (at least ten percent.) It’s expensive to fight the tribes, and the Baluchis are eager to take control of the lucrative natural gas fields operating in Baluchistan. The CIA report sees the country coming apart along ethnic lines, much like Yugoslavia did in the 1990s. This would create a Punjabi state, with at least half the population, plus Pushtun and Baluchi states, plus one or two more. The big question is what would happen to Pakistan’s nuclear weapons. The Pakistanis dismiss the report, pointing out that, while they created the mess, they’ve also learned to deal with it.

Personally, this whole scenario feels a bit far fetched… But, I’m just the messenger 😉

11 thoughts on “CIA projects grim future for Pakistan

  1. yeah, but this is posted next to “Why India Will Never Be a Global Power”…which has odd gems like the following:

    “Its landlocked geography, and surrounded by Pakistan and China will always impede its global aspirations.”

    Uh…India is landlocked?

    Let’s take a look at that again:

    http://hulk.bu.edu/misc/india/gifs/india.gif

    Hmm…what’s all that blue shit around the bottom?

    “The Best India can do is become another Brazil. And think of Pakistan as an Argentina. A smaller version of Brazil but very important none-the less.”

    I had no idea that Argentia was just a smaller version of Brazil! Wow. And all this time I thought there were all these other diffrentiating factors. But my bad! I was wrong! So Pakistan is just a mini-India.

    Anyway, I can find no mention of the report referred to anywhere on the CIA site or in the news. This sounds fishy to me.

  2. SJM, I could be wrong and I’ll let Vinod correct me if I am but I think what you were reading on Strategy Page were comments that some random (and obviously ill-informed) people left. The main page which Vinod cites is written by Strategy Page itself. Here is an article in the Washington Times that seems to confirm.

  3. it wouldn’t be that surprising if pakistan fell apart: it’s had failed institutions for 50 years; internal religious, ethnic, language schisms; ISI, etc. The whole region’s destabilized and when the dictator is gone, what’s going to hold all the shit together? nothing.

    fucking brits.

  4. No, I didn’t mean to infer that the author was leaving those little observational tidbits laying around like turds on the rug; sorry about that. My sarcastic side gets carried away sometimes.

    While I agree that Pakistan is sort of in a doldrums, I’m not sure that I’d agree the reasons you give would result in its collapse (have you read Jared Diamond’s “Collapse” yet? Good stuff, if you haven’t). India would be a factor, if it did, as would Pakistan, and environmental crises (of which there are several ongoing, not the least of which is the rapidly dropping water table in most of the arable areas and poor water management and agricultural techniques).

    But the ISI will probably be a stabilizing force (albeit a shitty horrible one).

    Ethnic rivalries tend to surface when societies are stressed, so I guess I can’t argue this one too hard, really. The gas crisis in Baluchistan would definitely lend this article some weight.

    I’m hoping that the Bush administration has some kind of B-52 with a smart bomb rigged up to take out Pakistani nukes in the event of a coup.

  5. aargh, sorry for the double-post…I didn’t realize the first one went through (had the word “nuke” in place of “coup.”)

    Duh.

    Time to go home, dammit.

  6. these articles on india becoming a superpower and pakistan becoming a failed state are interesting. (but yes, i see the point the WMD guys are making too). what is more relevant here is that while the indian GDP might increase to levels even higher than those predicted, that would not necessarily mean that indians would lead a better life. it remains a fact that india itself is on the brink of a social and ecological disaster; with sanitation, pollution-free air and care for the homeless unheard of in many city centres. i was watching this movie about robert kennedy (JFK’s brother), and he says in it, in the america of the 60s, ‘we might have a GDP of so many billion dollars, but it does not reflect the babies dying of kwashiorkar or the crime in our cities. it reflects the money a few rich people are making, at the cost of the rest of us.’ to me, the basic question of whether india has progressed or not will only be answered when young indian graduates do not naturally want to leave the country, and when a quality indian product would mean real quality, and we will start taking care of our own land and our own people.

  7. pakistan will never disintegrate, inshallah. it is going to get its strength from the love that punjabis have for the pushtu, balouch and sindhi brothers n sisters.

  8. Ahhhh…

    CIA… didn’t they say there are WMD in Iraq? and now they say Pakistan’s gonna be a failed state…..

    Whats interestings… Indians have started to get wet dreams about it…

    I so wish I can meet all these above moron posters after 2020 in my Pakistan and show them around the ‘failed’ Pakistan I will be living in.

    Tell me one good reason y Pakistan will fail? because we don’t have democracy…. if thats a criteria, China has failed 2/3 decades ago…

    Indians I bet you would love to ‘fail’ like China did????

    WIth unmatched Geographical location, huge skilled english speaking workforce, Impregnable defence Pakistan could be anything but a failed state….

    Dear Indians I feel sorry that with creation of Pakistan your mother land was amputated, and you will love to get this piece of land back, but thats not the way, we can be good neighbours and thats the only way…. stop having those wet dreams….

  9. Terrorism for the forseable future will be Pakistan ball and chain limiting its growth. The London bombing perpetrated by British Pakistanis is a very serious negative development for Pakistan. Most anglo-saxons (US and UK) want to beleive the terrorism situation in Pakistan is under control. When more explosion happen in the UK then I expect the West might start taking a hardline Indian like emotional response to the Pakistani terrorism machine. Failed state might be achieved before 2015. Unfortunately, terrorism brain washing centres in most Pakistani cities are as plentiful as McDonalds and Burger King resturants in western cities. I can’t see how Pakistan and turn the corner though I wish it would, as I don’t feel any joy in further human suffering in Pakistan.

  10. Pakistan successfully developed and meet all the challanges and progress. Do not under estimate the Paki Power. Pakistan is Peace lover country and you will see its progress higher and higher. Don’t u worry. We all live together and progress. Pakistan is bless by God and He will save Pakistan from all hidden enimies. Watch Back and do not feel jeoulusy.

  11. Yo Naeem and Muhammed

    Any country that can’t support a KFC for more than a few weeks ain’t going nowhere.

    Stop burning my stos down!